The Power Of A Positive No
How To Say No And Still Get To Yes.

In this brilliant book, The Power Of A Positive No, author William Ury, empowers his readers by providing concrete advice and practical examples for saying No in virtually any situation. Whether you are at work, at home or speaking with a pushy relative, saying no doesn’t have to become an anxiety-filled event.

Joan Borysenko, author of “Inner Peace For Busy People” and “Inner Peace For Busy Women” said that every woman needs a copy of this book. She promises the reader that learning to deliver a positive no can change your life, it changed hers dramatically in a single week – now that’s powerful!

The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes drives home the point that there is no doubt about the fact that delivering a Positive No requires courage, vision, empathy, fortitude, patience, and persistence. But it is within the reach of everyone every day, and the rewards are potentially enormous.

“By rehabilitating No and marrying it with Yes, we can make a better life for ourselves and for those around us. In the process we can build a better world for our children and grandchildren, based on integrity, dignity, and mutual respect”, says Ury.

The way in which we say no is the key. Saying no may seem like a small thing, but over time it can make a huge difference in our lives, in the lives of others around us, and in the world at large.

Author, William Ury, acknowledges that changing old patterns of fear and avoidance takes practice. Fortunately, each of us is offered many opportunities a day to practice saying No. We must think of it just as we would think of exercising a muscle. With daily exercise, the No muscle will become stronger and more confident.

Uncovering the hidden Yes, as we are saying No, is a key skill to develop. This accomplishes three useful tasks:

• It grounds you in something positive. You can now stand on your feet without standing on their toes. Your No can be for your needs, not again the other person. Instead of only saying No and rejecting the other person, you can simply say Yes to what matters most to you.
• It gives you a sense of direction. You now know where you are going with your No.
• It gives you energy. You now have the fuel to deliver your No and to sustain it in the face of resistance.

Ury is masterful in how he explains to us how to create the proper balance of No and Yes.

You may be wondering how you can effectively marry a No with a Yes, in other words, a positive No. Ury gives an example of a “No Smoking” sign that we sees while he is on vacation at a Mountain Resort Lodge. The sign presented it’s No message, but in a very positive and respectful way.

The sign read: “In order to accommodate the pleasure of all our guests. This is a No Smoking room. We ask that you smoke in our smoking room, The Great Outdoors! Thank you.”

The Power Of A Positive No is filled with similar examples of how one can effectively communicate a positive No. Once you understand the concept and give yourself a little practice, the skill can be developed fairly quickly. As with most challenges, preparation and practice help. Indeed, once you have practices the method, it takes less and less time to prepare, sometimes only a few seconds. However, initially the more preparation the better.

Another key lesson is how one can “build a golden bridge”. This is a key lesson in the book. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu counseled leaders to “build a golden bridge for your opponent to retreat across.”

Although this advice still holds true today, Ury reframes it more positively; he advises us to build a golden bridge for the other to advance across – toward a more positive and mutually beneficial solution.

We must step for a moment into the other’s shoes, so we can see how difficult it may be for them to say Yes to our proposal. In their eyes, they may see a giant canyon that separates their ideas from our own. Our job is to create that golden bridge for them to cross over to see the light.

We encourage our readers to add The Power Of A Positive No to their personal leadership library.

To learn more about William Ury, please visit www.WilliamUry.com

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